Elephants and Sukkah Walls?!

So for this week I was assigned an article about the traditions in the Talmud regarding Sukkot. To be honest, most of it was kinda boring. I'm not very strict when it comes to keeping Jewish holidays so it was not all that interesting to me. However, there was one part where it discussed the traditions of how some Rabbis believe that an elephant could act as a replacement to the walls of a Sukkah. This really intrigued me because it got me thinking about whether it is okay to replace other traditions to make it more convenient for yourself (in this case, if you were missing a wall of your Sukkah and just happened to have your pet elephant standing next to you, then you would be able to bend the rules).

Questioning different beliefs / traditions is one of the most important parts of being a Reform Jew in my opinion. To me, the fact that things like the Tannakh and Talmud were written so long ago means that it needs to be adapted. And for that reason we have to adjust and question so that we can still follow the main concepts in our everyday lives. So for that reason, I say yes to the idea of an elephant being the wall of a Sukkah. Not just in the literal sense, but also with the idea that you should be able to react and adjust to difficult situations and make them easier for you to deal with when practicing something from Talmud or Torah.